[Pkg-shadow-devel] [shadow-maint/shadow] Allow dots (`.`) in user/group names (#34)
Serge E. Hallyn
serge at hallyn.com
Tue Sep 13 13:36:17 UTC 2016
On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 05:12:43PM -0700, Nicolas François wrote:
> Hi,
>
> is_valid_name() is one of the functions that varies depending on the
> distributions.
>
> One historical reason for forbidding periods in user/group names is that it
> was used by BSD's chown to separate username and groupname.
> I could find this reference:
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/chown.html
>
> Also any program could have its own regex and reject / accept usernames (I
> don't know any standard username regex definition). Although, since much
> more relaxed policy have been used for a while (for example on Debian:
> https://github.com/Distrotech/shadow-utils/blob/distrotech-shadow-utils/debian/patches/506_relaxed_usernames)
> allowing periods should be quite safe.
>
> Best Regards,
> --
> Nekral
Thanks! So it sounds like a patch which allows '.' but adds a
configure option to enable that would be the way to go.
thanks,
-serge
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